My favourite patterns

Daniel arrived at school on Thursday clutching a very fancy woven briefcase.  A very fancy woven briefcase, with a very fancy ‘criss-cross’ pattern.  If you look closely, you should be able to spot how the pattern repeats.  Even if at first glance it looks quite complicated.

But that was not all.  Inside the woven briefcase (amongst a plethora of other patterned treasures) was a fancy woven place mat (that Daniel’s brother had made and allowed him to bring to school to show us; thank you Daniel’s brother!)  This too had a ‘criss-cross’ pattern, a bit like a checkerboard.  Can you spot how the patterns are the same?  And how they are different?  How many different colours do you see on each?

And now look at these.  An oven cloth from Can (‘It’s made in China from cotton.  It has a check pattern.  You can see stripes and diagonals,’ he told us.) and a kerchief from Shinnosuke.  ‘It has a pattern like this,’ he said, crossing his fingers.  Quite.

Liv had lots to say about her napkin.  After all, as she pointed out, ‘It is a complicated pattern.’  She went on to explain, ‘This is a pattern.  It has all kinds of coloured stripes on it.  Green.  Dark green.  Orange.  Yellow.  Light green…..’  Complicated all right!

More stripes from Alex and his feline friend.

‘Gold, pinkish gold with a bit of white.  Stripes.  A striped pattern.’

Next it was a quick hop to Asia with Leonor.  She had brought some book marks, patterned like…..like what exactly?  Where might you have seen patterns like these before?  Enakshi was quick to tell us that she had seen something similar in temples in India.  Further discussion led us to hand-knotted carpets.  Which may very well have been the inspiration for temple decorations.  Or vice versa.

Finally.  Dhaluni (and her sister) had worked extremely hard to make this.

How amazing !  You should have heard us all gasp as she carefully took it out of the protective plastic sleeve.  Do you need a closer look?

4 different kinds of seed (so a nice link to our previous unit on plants); peppercorns, red lentils, ‘gram’ or mung beans and red rice.  All individually and precisely stuck in concentric circles.

Do you have a favourite pattern?  Why not bring it to show us one day?